


no love sincerer (than the love of food)

by TempestRising



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band), One Direction (Band)
Genre: 5 Times, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Islamophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 23:17:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9464867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TempestRising/pseuds/TempestRising
Summary: 5 times One Direction fed 5 Seconds of Summer / 1 time One Direction needed feeding.





	

  
_**Michael** : We literally had no money. We didn't even have towels._

_**Calum** : The few fans we did have, they used to give us these buckets of chocolates. Cuz we didn't have large amounts of money. That's literally all we'd live off._

.***.

**1.**

They get to London and it's cold. They've been cold before, plunging into an ocean or a cold shower, but they never thought they'd see the UK. They never thought they'd see America, or winter, or snow. So when they get off the plane and it's cold they all realize at once that they're _this_ close to getting everything they've always wanted.

Since the Tweet ("T-Day!" Michael had been calling it. "Ohmygod _no_ " was Calum's response) they've all been on the same page. One Direction noticed them. If things went well, if they signed with Modest, it had been hinted that they'd open for the biggest boy band in the world.

So there was no question. They were going to London. Love you, mom. But they all came from working class families. Middle class families. Maybe lower middle class. They were going to be famous, had to be famous, because the music was everything and also because there was no life for them back home.

"Yeah, mom, everything's fine. Love you." Ashton hung up the phone and surveyed the apartment. They had mattresses pushed together on the floor. They had beat-up plates but no towels for after the shower (they were using a bed sheet). They had a kettle but no tea bags.

And in three weeks they had about thirty meetings and three hundred hours in the studio and if they made an album they'd be good and golden on tour.

Michael clapped him on the back. "It'll be fine. We've got the chocolate."

They attracted punky fans, outcasts, lower middle class fans who spent their money on tattoos and rent and who gave them chocolate. Pushed into their hands at airports. Left behind at gigs. Mikey had Tweeted a while ago a joke about not having much and they guessed, or knew, that in the process of chasing their dreams 5 Seconds of Summer had officially run out of money. So their fans (their wonderful fans, everyone said theirs was the best in the world but no 5sos fans beat everyone by a mile) spent money they didn't have on chocolate.

That first night they wrote and explored and sang and tried to figure out all the ways they could eat chocolate. "It's like "Forest Gump!" Luke said, putting on a bad American accent. "Fried-chocolate, chocolate-kababs, chocolate stew..."

Michael shoved chocolate in Luke's mouth just to get him to stop talking.

.

They'd met One Direction before but not like this. They were in the recording studio trying to get that riff just right when Liam Payne walked in, wearing glasses and sweatpants, hair mussed like he wasn't all awake yet. "They've already got you slaving away!" he said, and if he was tired his voice was still bright. "Don't mind me. Really. I just got here early. The boys - my boys - oh, you know what I mean. They won't be here for a while. Thought I'd stop by. Say hi. See if you guys wanted some tips." He scratched the stubble that he probably had to shave off for the cute boy band image. "That mic that Ashton's at shakes."

Liam sat next to Calum on the other side of the recording booth, murmuring to each other. Calum was shy. It was hard for a shy person to admit he was shy. He wanted to be on stage, was good on stage, but the parts in between...

It'll be all right, Liam said. Trust you crew. Trust Management. Don't trust anyone as much as you trust each other. You'll need each other. Only you guys can understand what you're going through.

Ashton couldn't listen to Michael and Luke squabble over whether pretty or sexy was better in this lyric and collapsed on Calum's other side. Nudged their knees together. "Got any chocolate?"

Liam produced a granola bar seemingly from thin air. "Chocolate's no good for recording, boys. I've tried to ban Niall and Louis from it but no one listens to me. Makes you manic. And then you crash. Studio days are marathons, not sprints."

Ashton accepted the granola bar gratefully and automatically broke it in half, and half again, giving Calum a quarter, nibbling on his own corner, saving the other half for when Muke's sexual tension died down enough for them to be hungry.

"You all home sick yet?" Liam asked, his tone kind even as he frowned at the way Ashton wrapped up the other half of the granola to save for later. "That was our problem, when we were your age."

"Tell us again about the Great War, Grandpa," Calum batted his eyelashes and Liam flushed so hard that Calum felt bad for him. "There's too much to do to be homesick. Really, it's only been a couple of days."

"I missed my mom's pot roast something fierce," Liam remembered. "I must have complained about it a lot because for my birthday catering had a roast, and we had a big Sunday dinner."

"Roast," Ashton said, hungrily. "Carrots," Calum added. And then they were off. "Green beans!" "Mashed potatoes!" "Sweet potatoes!" "Literally any kind of potato!"

They were naming foods for so long and so passionately that Ashton didn't notice when Liam left. On his chair were three more granola bars. Ashton wondered if ol Payno just excreted breakfast food.

.

They had cobbled together a dinner of fries, chocolate, two McDonalds hamburgers, and bananas filched from a hotel lobby. They ate and wrote and talked idly about going out on the town, wondered if they could find a place that didn't have a cover.

All four heads swiveled when there was a knock on the door. No one knew where they were. Almost no one knew who they were. "Probably forgot rent already," Michael joked even as he got up to see who was there.

"Sign for this," the other four boys heard, and they heard Michael ask what they owed, and the other man said it was already paid for. Have a good night.

"Guys!" they all scrambled to their feet at Michael's voice, so high.

It took all four of them to lift the massive crate. They ended up putting it on the couch because they didn't think the flimsy dining room table would hold it.

"Oh my god," Luke breathed as they pried open the lid.

Inside was: Jars of Nutella, peanut butter, jam, fruit; loaves of bread; cheese wrapped in wax paper; fish wrapped in newspaper; a ham wrapped in tinfoil. Cans of tuna, beans, soup, and corn. There was also pasta, mac and cheese, and rice. A carton of eggs. Popcorn packets. Apples, oranges, bananas. Underneath was a cooler with a pint of ice cream and six beers. Sprinkled on top of everything, tucked in every corner, was every flavor of tea under the sun.

There was a sound. Ashton jerked his head up and saw Michael start to cry.

**2.**

It was actually happening. They were going on tour. "A supporting act" Luke kept saying, and everyone shouted him down. Who the fuck cares. They were in school eight months ago and now they were heading to America.

"I want to see the Statue of Liberty," Michael announced. They were in the lobby of Modest's enormous building, hammering out the details of how many busses and adding shows in cities and everything was so real and in writing and One Direction was there, everyone was there, thirty people in this room talking about the logistics of traveling, and the Australian boys were going to vibrate out of their chairs and through the floor.

"I don't think you see the Statue of Liberty on the way into America anymore," Calum pointed out, "since, you know, we're not on tugboats."

"Thank god," Luke muttered. It was Not Okay for Aussies to get sea sick but Luke had been known to hurl with the best of them and gamely go out on the water anyway. Even as he spoke he was thinking of food. Since they got to London, he'd hardly thought of anything else.

Their anonymous crate of food was running low, and even the bagels and fruit they'd pilfered from meetings didn't seem to be enough. But on tour there would be catering, and they wouldn't have to worry anymore about scrounging as discretely as they could. Luke was gearing himself up for a polite war with Calum, who was skinny, skinny, skinny and would be the first to share his portion, share so much that Luke wondered if he'd been eating at all. A few more days, he reminded himself. And they'd eat like kings.

They turned automatically in the direction of their hotel but a thin hand caught Luke on the shoulder. "You lads need to learn how to celebrate," Zayn said, pulling them back into the building.

Calum glanced at the many clocks on the wall. "It's three in the afternoon."

"I was thinking Indian food. I'm starving, like." They went out a different door and Zayn slipped easily between the four of them, who were still basically nobodies, and that's how they made their way to Brick Lane, the entire street smelling so much like curry you were bowled over by it.

It was only when they got inside one of the restaurants, Zayn asking quietly for a back room, being shown through the twisting tables, that Luke did a mental calculation of their money and realized that unless someone was hiding a tenner there was only twenty pounds between them.

"It's on me, lads," Zayn mentioned with the casualness of someone newly used to taking his friends out. Sometimes One Direction were children, and 5sos were children with them, and sometimes the older lads could be cool as James Dean. This was certainly a James Dean moment, as Zayn ordered drinks for the table and no one even mentioned IDs.

Michael and Calum started splitting the plate of naan already on the table, and Luke glanced at Zayn, who kept brushing his hair out of his eyes like he wasn't sure what to do with this new style. "Thanks," Luke murmured. "We owe you one."

Zayn waved a hand. It wasn't an imperious gesture. It was a gesture of someone who understood, and had been there. "This is the best part of the job." He rubbed his eyes and smiled across the table at where the other three members of Luke's band were talking about other American sights they wanted to see, wondering if the Golden Gate bridge was anywhere near the Grand Canyon. "You'll see in a bit. When you can, like, take your mum out to dinner with your own money? It's the best feeling in the world."

"Thank you," Luke said again, sincerely. They'd all had little enough help in their lives. It was strange that now they were so close to...whatever. Being big. Breaking out. Now they were so close everyone seemed to be helping them. And maybe there used to be help all along, and they just didn't know how to ask for it.

The tan boy winked. "There's a fee for coming out with me. Like, that's why you don't see my lot here. They know how I do things." There had never been any menus. Luke didn't even notice that until Zayn rattled off an order that could feed forty people and there were just five of them. "You all gotta try a bit of everything," Zayn grinned, dark eyes dancing.

It was a lot of food, and Zayn played conductor, barely touching the food himself as he egged Calum and Michael into an competition. Luke just sat back and grinned. Maybe letting other people help them wouldn't be so bad. Maybe it would be the best thing that could have happened to them.

 

**3.**

Harry joined them on one of their town walks. They were in the middle of nowhere America. Either Iowa or Idaho. It's funny how you lose track of some things. Anyway, it was a quiet enough town that security had let them go on their own, making Harry swear up and down that he wouldn't try to pull in the middle of the day. Making Michael swear up and down to keep an eye on everyone. 5sos took turns on who was going to be the responsible one, and this month was Michael's turn.

They had no destination so they just wandered, window shopping, chatting. Calum wanted to see what a diner looked like and ended up having a conversation with a curious old lady where he had to swear over and over again that he wasn't Mexican. "I can show you my passport?" Calum offered.

"Those things lie," the lady said dismissively, but she did offer them all coffee on the house. "Don't get many foreigners around here."

Harry thanked her profusely and took the coffee, which wasn't anything like they'd expected. It was rich and deep and warm and Michael cupped it in his hands and looked curiously at the walls, which were filled with odds and ends. A completed Coca Cola puzzle. A family portrait from the 1800s. A Confederate flag. A Union Jack. A frame filled with money from around the world.

They were all quiet as they drank their coffee, Calum and Luke showing each other things on Twitter. Ashton texting his sister. Michael had left his phone back on the bus and, even more surprisingly, Harry had, too.

"We should get some bread," Harry said impulsively. "Or pastries. Or something. You know, I used to work in a bakery."

"No way!" Everyone looked up from their phones to grin sarcastically and Harry took it in stride, laughing, ordering corn bread and home made wheat bread and cinnamon rolls, pulling out American money from somewhere and sorting through the bills.

"Why'd you do that?" Michael asked when Harry came back with the warm bread.

The older boy shrugged. "She seems nice. And she gave us coffee. And if the bakery's as good as the coffee is, it's something I don't want to miss."

Michael just stared at the food and sipped his coffee and Harry stared at him. "Hey," Harry said, quietly, "you want to help me pick out some rolls for Niall? He'll kill us if we don't bring something back."

They stared for a while at the array of sweets, muffins and cupcakes, cake and rolls, and Michael wrapped a hand around his own stomach. "Niall's got the fastest metabolism I've ever seen," he commented, to say something. Harry was really good at these thoughtful silences.

"He doesn't like it," Harry said after a long pause. "Funny. Everyone envies him. But he wants to put on muscle like Payno and he just can't get the weight up. Everyone says 'wait a year' but you know, it's hard in our position. Dunno where we'll be in a year." He pushed his hair back. It wasn't long enough to be tied up and that seemed to annoy him. "No one ever likes the hand they're dealt."

He fixed Michael with a serious gaze, so serious that Mikey had to look away, count the seeds on a sesame bun. "You know, in interviews we're always asked what we'd do differently, if we could do X-Factor again. And I think we kept our heads pretty well, but we always say we'd try to enjoy it more." Harry nudged Michael's shoulder with his. "Don't let people tell you what you should do with your body. Okay? We can't go back in time but we're going to make sure you guys have a hell of a ride."

"You saw that stuff?" Michael asked. Somehow it was more embarrassing that Harry saw it than Calum, who'd told him first thing in the morning to avoid Twitter.

Harry shrugged, and ordered something called a coffee cake. Big enough to share with half the crew. "It's hard to ignore. But you made it this far, right? And the only people you have to pay attention to are the fans. And your fans adore you."

He offered a smile and Mikey rubbed the back of his neck. "It's kind of a stupid thing to worry about, isn't it?"

"Not stupid," Harry said, and one of the things about Harry was that he took everything seriously. "It's not stupid to be upset when people think they have a right to talk about your body, or your hair, or your mates. But." Harry spread out his hands, his long fingers, shrugged. "You're not going to change them. And hopefully they won't change you."

Mikey rubbed the back of his neck. "You're really smart, you know that?"

"Don't go spreading it around," Harry deadpanned, picking up the coffee cake. "We want our fans to actually finish school."

 

**4.**

They got to the UK early and visited Niall in Surrey. "Only you would get to do PT with real footballers," Calum said. He didn't even care that he sounded jealous.

"Trade you for a good knee," Niall panted, pulling off his cleats. "Nah, it's been good. Didn't write a damn thing for this album, though. Left the boys out to dry." He shook his head, looked up through his hair. "Fancy a pint? Lukey, look tall, I'm not getting thrown out for bringing a kid along."

"I'll be eighteen in a couple months," Luke complained, but did stand up straighter as they got to the pub. 

Niall ordered for them. "I've got a tab, o'course. Doc said I could be on medication for months if I don't drink and I asked him if he ever operated on an Irishman before. But knee surgery does hurt something fierce." He smiled as he spoke and ordered five pints of Guinness.

Calum found them a table and kept an eye on the match being shown on every screen over head. Mikey knew he wanted to watch this game and couldn't help teasing his band mate. "So why don't they just pick up the round thing?"

"Michael, you make Australia look bad," Ashton said idly.

So of course the guitarist talked louder. "Why does it take an hour to get zero points?" "If you're going to block somebody why not just kick them in the balls?"

"Shut up, we're trying to watch!" A couple of Uni blokes huddled around mid-day pints frowned.

But they didn't know that only egged Mikey on. "Well, it doesn't really make sense, running back and forth. Why not leave the ball alone and take a nap?"

"Mikey, you like football," Luke muttered.

"But isn't this so much more fun?"

The Uni boys stood up as one and - well, Michael might have slightly underestimated how big they were. But he was wired and the sun was bright and he hadn't been in a real scrap in ages. "You boys want to punch out or make out?"

Before the Uni boys could do more than take a step towards the band, Niall slid between the groups as gracefully as he could with a knee still wrapped in a brace. "Sorry about them," Niall said, jerking a head towards 5sos, "cousins on me dad's side, you know. They like to pick fights. You boys want another round? They don't mean no harm." He yelled over his shoulder to the barkeep. "Peter! Put these smart men's drinks on my tab." The Irish lad ushered the Uni boys towards the bar. "Sorry again. Have a good day, mates."

When Niall turned back to the Australians, he was grinning. "Aw, hell, I really missed you guys." Then, winking. "Maybe we should drink these outside though."

"Niall, you are the coolest man I know," Ashton praised as they skirted around the group at the bar.

"I swear to god every fucking member of your band is James fucking Dean," Mikey said, hugging Niall in the spring sunshine.

**5.**

Louis brought them pizza as a peace offering. "Sorry 'bout tonight," he said, and seeing Louis serious was always a strange thing, the eldest always more likely to make a joke. "But we're officially stuck in the hotel until further notice."

Mikey groaned. Ashton pulled bottled water out of his suitcase. Luke pulled beers out of his. "How's Zayn?" Calum asked.

Louis shrugged. Handed over the pizza and started biting his nails, a habit he'd picked up from Niall, whose hands were bitten down to the quick. "I think he tried to drown himself in the shower. I dunno. Liam and Harry are with him."

What had started out as a joke on the Daily Show had devolved into three days of fighting at concerts. They were in the American South now, in Charlotte North Carolina, and maybe that had something to do with the factions appearing at concerts. It was Ashton who first saw the signs, a huddle in the back of the arena, but there was little they could do about it. They all knew - Zayn knew - that drawing attention to the terrorist "joke" would cause more harm than good. Still, it hadn't stopped Ashton from telling Louis about the signs between shows. And the One Direction boys had spent the show putting themselves between that side of the stadium and Zayn.

"I hate Twitter," Luke said, vehemently, taking a savage bite of pizza and then putting it on his lap. It was quiet, eerily quiet. Police had made the perimeter around the hotel larger than usual. They weren't letting the girls carry backpacks. All of the cops had guns.

There was only a week left in the tour, ending in October in Florida. They had three days between Sun Life Stadium in Miami and their flights to Australia. Before this joke, before all the hurt it brought with it, the meetings, the biggest argument in the band had been about whether to spend the three days in Disney World or Miami Beach.

"Anyway," Louis stood up, like he didn't know what to do with himself, like he wanted to be in all places, perhaps, with Zayn in his room, with Niall, who'd taken over a floor, playing guitar to express himself, with 5sos eating pizza. "Anyway," Louis said again, and didn't move. He kept running a hand through his hair, washed and wet and dripping on his shirt plastered to his head in a way that made him look young. "I'm sorry for getting you lot in this mess. I dunno. Maybe it's better to start small."

"I don't think you know what small is," Luke said, carefully.

"And you didn't get us into anything," Calum pointed out. "We wanted this. Everybody wants this."

"Maybe not all of this," Mikey chipped in. "But I bet some version happens to everyone. And it's not happening to us, anyway, it's happening to Zayn. We're just closing ranks."

"Which we're happy to do," Calum said. Somewhere along the way he'd developed muscles to flex.

From down the hall the music that was Niall stopped, and even through a door Louis knew Liam's voice when he heard it. Probably rounding the troops. Closing ranks was right. Their default for dealing with shit had always been to pile close together, protection through proximity.

Liam stuck his head in 5sos's room next. "Come on, Tommo."

How strange their lives were, that they had a drill for this. "Can we help?" Luke asked.

Liam eyed the four on the floor, the pizza boxes, mostly unopen. "Yeah," Liam said, scrubbing a hand over his face. "No phones. You guys mind _Toy Story_?"

Michael wrapped Liam in a hug, because it looked like he needed one. "We love _Toy Story_."

They all took a pizza box. Pizza didn't fix everything, but it fixed a lot.

**+1**

They met back up in Australia. "Come down," 5sos said, "we'll cook for you. You can take some time off. Just a week. Just three days. We miss you."

And they really did need a break. So they went. The first half of OTRA wrapped up in Dubai and there were the parties and the goodbyes and all four of them flew to Australia.

On the day of the dinner, Niall showed up first. "The Wonder Twins are right behind me,"he said, settling himself in one of Luke's kitchen chairs and rubbing absently at his knee. Ashton handed him a beer. Michael gave him a hug that went on for so long that Niall sank into it, closing his eyes. When he opened them he looked better. More like his old self. "Pass me a guitar, Mikey. What'd I hear about this new song?"

They played for a little while, Niall going off mid-riff to strum "Little Things" instead. "18." Slow songs. It was a slow song kind of day.

Liam and Louis showed up next (Liam with a bottle of wine that he proudly announced was older than every member of 5 Seconds of Summer). Louis's smile was cracked down the middle. He hugged everyone, then took a seat on the ground next to Niall, alternately sipping a beer and rubbing Niall's leg. Louis had insisted on learning the PT stuff. Niall pet Louis's hair in appreciation.

Last in was Harry. Late. So late the sun had turned the sky purple. "I'm sorry," he said, wrapping his arms around Luke. "There were girls at the airport. Paps, too. I had to make about seventeen loops around the city before they were off my tail. Didn't want them bugging you guys."

By then they were several glasses of wine in and hadn't minded waiting. Those who knew guitar had guitars in their laps. Louis was sitting at the piano and Harry, who must've been tired, sat next to him. For a second Louis stiffened, then stopped his rendition of Christmas in April to pet Harry's long curls. "Have you told them?" Harry asked. The rest of One Direction shook their heads.

It was Niall who said it. "We're going on a break."

The Australians just stared at him. "You know," Michael said, "for some reason all I can hear is Ross Geller screaming in my head 'We were on a break!'"

Harry's laugh was so loud and so sudden that everyone else laughed, too.

They talked about it, then. About Zayn. Talked so long Luke served dinner (he'd made it himself, fish caught by Calum, greens and fresh fruit and quartered potatoes.) They sat all over the room and talked about Zayn, and the fight, and what going on a break meant. But then the conversation turned, as conversations do, to reminiscing. They all had a lot of stories to tell.

Louis had just finished showing off pictures of the new twins ("can't believe there's finally another man in the house!") when Luke grabbed Liam's Very Good Bottle of Wine. "Ahm," he awkwardly cleared his throat, cringing when everyone looked at him. "I don't really know if this is a toast kind of moment," the youngest said, filling everyone's glasses as he spoke, "but we've wanted to have dinner for a while. I don't know if you all remember, but you lot have been very good at feeding us."

"When we moved to London, we didn't even have towels," Michael said, taking up the speech before Luke spilled wine all over his carpet. "We pooled all out money for that apartment. Liam saw us one of those first days and realized we were basically living off chocolate."

"You made Michael cry," Ashton said, quietly.

Liam looked dumbfounded. "How'd you know it was me?" He smiled when Niall thumped him on the back. "I mean - of course you're welcome. You were growing boys. If I knew you'd all be monsters I would've let you starve."

"You've all done it," Luke said, finding the thread of his speech again. "Always knew when we were down, or down on our luck."

"We literally would not be here without you," Michael butted in. "For so many reasons. We just want to say thank you." He grinned, and the serious moment evaporated. "And even when you're old and boring cuz you haven't toured in ages, you can always have a home in Australia."

"When you're on your fourth marriage -"

"Or your tenth kid -"

" _When you're fat and old_ -"

"Shut up, you lot." Niall grinned, lifted his glass. "Cheers then, mates. Let's meet back here next year."

And if his words had a watery edge, and if some of the boys-turned-men in the room were wiping their eyes - well. There'd be more laughter later in the night. But some friendships can't help but bring you to tears.

**Author's Note:**

> dedicated to my little sister who told me last night she loved this story idea. here you go. i didn't need sleep anyway.


End file.
